


Six Months Gone

by lovethecoat51



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-16
Updated: 2014-11-16
Packaged: 2018-02-25 15:27:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2626724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovethecoat51/pseuds/lovethecoat51
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happened to Jack in those six months at the end of Children of Earth</p>
            </blockquote>





	Six Months Gone

Mr. Dekker was quite proud of himself. He’d managed to save the world with his brilliant little plan. Granted, he wouldn’t get any credit for it, but he also wouldn’t get any blame. That was his philosophy: just stand back. Egos only got in the way, and pride comes with a price. As for himself, he was perfectly content in the knowledge that his idea to use the boy had worked.

Unfortunately, he had underestimated the human element of it. Well, the Jack Harkness element, at least. He had heard of Harkness’s reputation; indeed, few in their field hadn’t. He was known as the cold soldier, the one who never faltered in his commitment to duty, no matter the cost. And in this case, Harkness lived up to his reputation.

But everyone, no matter how dutiful they are, has a breaking point. And Jack Harkness had reached his.

You couldn’t tell it from the outside. He seemed like he was handling this loss like he had every other one. He was feeding himself the same bullshit he did every time; that he had to do it, there was no other way, it was for the greater good. Only this time, it wasn’t going down so easily. He hadn’t lost just his grandson; the look on his daughter’s face meant that she irrevocably hated him and she’d rather die than own up to being related to _him_.

Jack had lost everything. His friends, his family, his purpose. The only thing more dangerous than a man who can’t die is one who has no reason to live.

The soldiers inside the compound all took a step back when he walked past. No one dared question why he wanted to speak to Dekker. Right now, the only thing they were brave enough to say to him was “yes, sir.”

Dekker was handed over to his custody without hesitation. They were all sick of his whining anyway. And no one believed the Captain would do anything but interrogate him a bit more. There were questions they all had, but no one could get a straight answer out of him. Why not let the expert handle it? 

The two men sat in the empty warehouse – the same warehouse where Jack had given everything to save humanity. The cameras had been turned off, the surrounding rooms emptied. He had asked for privacy; they had gladly given it.

Jack studied Dekker for a long time, sitting in absolute silence, still as the grave. It made the strangely younger man intensely uncomfortable, being under such scrutiny, but the discomfort never showed across his aged features.

“I have a few questions, and I think you’re the guy with the answers,” Jack began quietly. “I don’t really like to beat around the bush, so I’m just gonna come out and say it. You were awful quick with that ultimate solution, to use a child. That only means one thing in my head: you _knew_. You knew all along. You could have stopped this. You had the knowledge, you had the technology, so why didn’t you?”

“It makes no difference, the why,” Mr. Dekker answered with a unemotional shrug. “It wouldn’t have mattered, the end would have been the same. One child for everyone else.”

“It would have mattered to me! Steven would still be here if you hadn’t killed him!”

Dekker smiled, his personal motto saving him the guilt trip. “But I didn’t kill him, Captain. You did.”

Jack felt something inside him snap. All the sorrow, the anger, the rage he had been so diligently controlling had been set free, let loose to the world at large. Poor Mr. Dekker, with his philosophy of just standing back, had no place to hide. There were no official edicts to cower behind, no higher-ups to pass the buck to, not even a wall to give him some cover. Just him in front of a towering inferno of a man, one now completely lost in his own grief.

Mr. Dekker never stood a chance.

Bones crunched. Blood splattered. Flesh ripped. Punch after punch, Jack laid into the old man, holding nothing back. He couldn’t, not even if he tried. The beast inside him, the one that for so long had been caged and tamed, had been unleashed. And it was hungry.

It had been a long time since he had actually _felt_  a person die at his hands. Die in his arms, yes; that feeling was too familiar and too fresh. But intentionally? With nothing but his fingers to choke the life out of the helpless corpse-to-be? Oh no. It had been well over two thousand years. He had forgotten the rush, the release of all those lovely little chemicals that worked overtime to stop the bloodlust while at the same time other lovely little chemicals worked to fuel it more. For the moment, the other lovely little chemicals won out.

It wasn’t until he noticed the brain matter smearing his own vision that Jack even began to clear his head. When he looked at the damage he had inflicted, he wasn’t even repulsed. There was nothing resembling a human in the pile of mush before him except the tan overcoat Dekker had worn. Jack was satisfied, satiated, appeased.

And that thought appalled him more than the sight before his feet.

Without so much as a backwards glance, he set the carcass on fire and left the room in search of a shower. The smoke detectors did their job and soon turned on the sprinkler system, but Jack knew what he was doing. He knew how to set a blaze so that those puny little nozzles didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell to undo what he had done. Perhaps they’d save the building, but that body was done for.

In the panic that ensued, he easily slipped out unnoticed. He headed straight for the nearest pub, ignoring any strange looks that were sent towards the man in the funny overcoat. He didn’t care what any of them thought of him right now. They should be down on their knees, kissing his feet for delivering them from those monsters while showering their praises upon him. But no, instead he got whispers behind his back and stray comments floating through the air as he worked his way through a bottle of vodka with alarming speed.

“He’s heartless, that one.”

“Never did trust that bloke.”

“You wouldn’t do that to me, right, granddad?”

It didn’t matter what they were actually talking about. In his mind, every comment was directed at him. Alright, he _did_  care what they thought about him. He cared a great deal. More than he should, actually.

That’s why he came off as heartless. He couldn’t let his emotions get in the way of what needed to be done. This whole situation was proof of that. No, he didn’t have a choice. But that didn’t make the decision – or the aftermath – any easier.

What was the point of it anyway? So that these morons could sit in a pub, drinking beer and claiming they never liked Katie Price from day one, always knew she was a slag? Pointless. Jack used to cling to the smallest bit of gratitude to make it all better. His was a thankless job, he knew it, but a smile, a handshake, a hug would mean the world to him. It would always give him the push he needed to get up and do it all again tomorrow.

At least, it used to. Now it didn’t really matter. Nothing would make this seem worth it. It was just too much. And no one cared. They were just happy that their children were safe and sound at home. Even if half of them were here at the pub like nothing had happened and they wouldn’t even know who to thank had the urge come upon these self-absorbed ingrates. If they only knew the price of their safety…

Who the hell was he kidding? If they knew the price of their safety, it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference. They wouldn’t live their lives differently, knowing that people were sacrificing everything dear to keep the rest of the world safe. They wouldn’t give a flying fuck, so long as they got to live their lives however the hell they wanted.

Jack couldn’t take it anymore. He slammed the shot glass down on the bar, stood up, and shouted at the patrons, “YOU PEOPLE HAVE NO IDEA!”

Silence fell as he stalked out of the dingy little place, but within seconds, life went back to normal in the pub. As if he had never been there.

He ghosted his way back to Cardiff, hopping trains and buses, even walking a few lonely roads. He just wanted to get home. When he got back, though, he saw for the first time what had happened to his Hub.

To say it was gone was an understatement. It was utterly devastated. Everything he had worked so hard for, everything he had poured his blood, sweat, and tears into for over a century, was destroyed. Just like that. Only a heap of rubble and a gaping hole in the middle of Roald Dahl Plass remained as a silent tribute to what had once been Earth’s best and last line of defense against alien threats.

It made Jack sick to his stomach to simply _look_  at the ruins. He wasn’t going to get any sort of rest any time soon. His feet started moving of their own accord away from the wreckage; he needed to get away. Far away.

He stuck to the back streets as he made his way to a line of storage sheds. Torchwood storage sheds. Without his wrist strap, it'd be a bitch to get in, but he could manage. He knew Torchwood inside and out, and that included all its faults and weaknesses.

Sure enough, it took him less than half an hour to pick the electronic lock of one of the sheds. He made a mental note to upgrade security systems when he got everything in working order again.

Then it hit him. The monumental list of things to do to get Torchwood even _functioning_  again. He needed to rebuild the Hub, figure out what all had been lost, find a new team... It was too much, too soon. Forget doing any of those things; he didn't have the strength to even decide where they would be headquartered. He'd done the whole shebang once, and it all blew up in his face. He was done. Torchwood was over. There was no point to it anymore. It just got people, people he cared about, killed before their time. The dream had died.

Let the world worry about itself. They always had UNIT to fall back on if their own stupidity got them into trouble. Who knew, maybe the Doctor would manage to swoop in and save the day. Oh, wait, no, that's right. The Doctor only steps in when he deems it appropriate - and he seemed to be content to let Jack sell his soul instead of stepping in and stopping the 456. You'd think aliens who got high off of children would be something a guy as noble as the Doctor would be against. Apparently not.

Jack found a little Verulian scanner and sat down, flipping a little switch to turn it on. A quiet, droning hum filled the tiny storage shed as he sat and watched, waiting for a ship to come within hailing distance. He was done with this hunk of rock. He was done with these people. He was done trying to be the hero and only getting hated for it.

The hours dragged on; Jack couldn't even find solace in sleep. For one thing, if a ship passed by, he had no alarm to go off to let him know. But that was only a fleeting concern for him. The real reason he couldn't rest was that every time he closed his eyes, he was haunted by the dead. He could hear their voices and their laughter in his ears, but he also had their last words - in some cases, last screams - pounding in his ears.And if the sounds weren't bad enough, he could see them in his mind's eye. Sometimes, they were happy, vibrant, the way he wanted to remember them. But more often than not, they were bitter, accusatory, wondering why in the hell the dashing hero had failed to save the day.

It wasn't just the dead that haunted him, trapping him in the small, dark prison; he couldn't face the living, either. How could he possibly look Gwen or Rhys or any of them in the eye, now that they understood, they knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was dangerous to even know? They _knew_  he'd hand them over to death without blinking, if that's what the job called for. The spell was broken - they now realized what a monster he was. He could never see him again.

That's why he couldn't leave the shed. He'd see the dead everywhere, the normal product of a grieving mind, but even worse, he'd see those who weren't dead yet. And he'd rather deal with the people stuck in his hand than those outside it, the ones he couldn't ignore when they demanded answers.

So he sat, staring at the screen and tapping his foot to somehow lessen the deafening silence. There were moments where he stared at the little radar for so long that he started getting a sense of vertigo and would almost faceplant into it. But it was better than the alternative. He'd rather have a broken nose than a broken psyche; although, at the rate things were going, he'd have both before long.

After a 67 hour marathon of nothing, he saw a little blip, just on the edge of the screen. He almost jumped out of his chair and started running around the shed, looking for other bits and bobs to enhance the signal, maybe get a better idea of what he was going to get a lift from.

It turned out to be a small scientific expedition from Hrun that was orbiting Venus. They warmly welcomed the captain aboard, giving him room and board in exchange for his knowledge of the planet. He did his best to smile and get along with everyone, but every chance he got, he was scanning for the next passing ship, trying to get as far away from Earth as possible.

He never stayed on one ship or planet for more than a few weeks. He'd try, but inevitably something would remind him of his old life. And it was his old life: he was never going back to it. It was just the way he life seemed to run. He'd get settled in a place, actually feel like he belonged, have people who cared about him, a purpose, everything a person needs to not implode on themselves. And then, in the blink of an eye, it'd all be ripped from him. Either by aliens or retcon, he continually had his life torn to shreds. It happened on Boeshane, it happened at the Time Agency, it happened with the Doctor. And now it was Torchwood's turn to go the same way.

Five months on the run and he still couldn't move on. The past stuck to him like a shadow, following him everywhere. He couldn't shake it, couldn't outrun it, no matter what he did. All his usual tricks weren't working. He was getting desperate. Every time he seemed to make progress, to be getting a foothold into something new, something to latch onto and turn him around, he got sucked back into the blackness of his own broken mind.

The breaking point came as he sat in a dingy little bar in the back reaches of the Damescene Cluster, wasting the last of the cash he had earned off his latest con. He overheard a conversation - alright, an argument - between a ship's captain and her engineer.

"That engine is a recipe for disaster! The compressor is about a decade outdated, the reactor won't last the next warp jump, and you're using the wrong kind of fuel!" the engineer, all three-foot-four-inches of him, was saying.

His superior, a blue skinned, seven foot tall, three armed woman, wouldn't hear of it. "I've been flying her since before you hatched out of your egg."

"Then maybe it's time for an upgrade!"

"I think you're right. You're fired."

"Good! I wouldn't step foot back on that death trap if you paid me my weight in Arcadian diamonds!" And with that, the dwarf stomped out of the bar and into the night, leaving behind a very frustrated looking woman.

She pulled out a cigarette with one hand, a lighter with another, and ran a hand through her hair with the third. Jack couldn't quite catch the words she muttered as she lit up, but the tone was clear enough. She was at her wits end. That fight was probably a long time coming; she might have even had it with other engineers. And as good as she was at keeping her ship going, nothing beat having an actual engineer on board.

Well, he knew an opportunity when he saw one, and he pounced on this one. He slithered up to her, an almost perfect Harkness smile plastered on his face. "Excuse me, I couldn't help by overhear. It seems you're down a crew member."

The blue woman looked him up and down, unable to suppress a bit of a grin. "Alright, pretty boy, what are your qualifications?"

"You name it, I've worked on it. I'm told I have _very_  skilled hands," he said with just a hint of a leer.

The captain remained unimpressed. "She's a cold fusion cruiser, Atlantis class. Think you can handle her?"

Jack smirked. "In my sleep."

"We'll see about that. You got yourself a job. Meet me at the docks in an hour. She's called the _Napoleon_." She turned and headed out the door.

Jack grinned to himself and set off for the little room he was renting. He really only went there when everywhere else was closed - which wasn't very often in this city. That's where he kept the few things he'd collected on his travels: some clothes, a few bits of mostly broken tech, and most importantly, a hair brush. He might be on the run, but he still had standards.

He casually made his way through the city, taking his time in getting to the ship. And she was a beauty. Hidden amongst a long line of top of the line military freighters was a small little rust bucket, big enough for maybe half a dozen crew and falling apart at the seams.

"Looks can be deceiving," said the blue skinned captain, standing in the hatchway.

"Could say the same to you. Where are you headed then?" Jack said as he ambled up to the ship.

She stepped aside to let him in and led him through the dark corridors. "Signed up on a ship before you even knew where we were going? Not exactly the best long term plan."

"I'm more of an 'in the moment' kind of guy."

"So it seems. I'm Captain Rana Ludol. You got a name?"

"Hire a guy before you even know his name? How's _that_  for a long term plan?" Jack teased, then offered his hand. "Jim Carter."

"Good to meet you, Jim. We're headed to the ion reefs in the Milky Way. There's this backwater little system that has the best harvest. Mostly because it's so isolated."

It took every ounce of control Jack had to not stop dead in his tracks. "Yeah, I heard not too many ships have made it out there yet."

"The Shadow Proclamation barely monitors that whole segment, so most crafts get away with whatever they like. Heard a drug ring sunk their claws in out there, so keep an eye out, yeah? Don't want to get you killed or anything." They arrived at a small room, barely six feet long. His little "opportunity" was turning out to be a nightmare. "Well, this is your bunk. It's not much, but it's home. I don't have time to show you around, we leave dock in half an hour."

Captain Rana left Jack at the tiny, cramped cabin and went back to her duties. He threw his few possessions in the corner and sat in the darkness, the low hum of the ship doing nothing to drown out his rambling thoughts. It was like Earth had a strange pull on him, constantly pulling him back no matter how far he ran. And now, to hear that the officials knew about the 456 - knew and still did _nothing_... well, so much for faith in the system.

He stopped that train of thought before it got out of control. He needed to get down to the engine, to check on that reactor. Or compressor. Whatever. If this ship was going to blow, he at least wanted some kind of warning. Not that it'd really matter, but floating around in the vacuum of space wasn't high on his list of things to do, and he'd like to have a little prep time before experiencing it.

In the clamor of the engine room, busily repairing the warp coil, his mind flared up again. Thinking about how he couldn't go on like this forever. He knew that. He knew that the moment he left Earth five months ago. He could _feel_  his sanity slipping, slowly losing his grip on reality. Even here, surrounded by thousands of miles of wiring that needed to be replaced, a few hundred sprockets that were about to shatter, and almost every single major engine part about to break down, not everything was as perfect with Jack Harkness as he liked to pretend.

No, not even close. He wouldn't admit to it, but he was starting to see things in the dark. When he was alone, he could swear people were constantly watching him, judging his every movement. At least they hadn't started speaking yet. Of course, the visions and sensations were just due to his lack of sleep. Or the fact that he hadn't actually eaten in over a month. Not because he didn't want to, or because he couldn't afford it, or any of that. Over the past few weeks, he'd noticed a strange thing happening to him: his hands were shaking. He had no idea why - he'd _never_  had a problem with nerves, and it'd be a hell of a time for his age to catch up with him. But the fact remained that he could barely open his door, let alone somehow eat. The only time he wasn't trembling uncontrollably was when he was working on the engine. A bitter irony, as that was the only place he couldn't distract himself from his memories.

He knew he couldn't take it much longer. It was a harsh realization, but he finally admitted he couldn't do this on his own. He didn't want to spend eternity trapped inside his mind. He _needed_  someone, and there was only one person who would be able to help. John Hart. But, without his wrist strap, who knew how long it'd take Jack to track him down? Last he knew, John was out wandering around Earth, but he also knew how easily John got bored when he didn't have anything tying him down - both literally and figuratively. He could be anywhere by now.

It would take a lot to find him, he mused as replaced the linear particle converter. First he had to get his wrist strap - that was the only possible way he could contact him now. There wasn't any technology in this century that was compatible with a vortex manipulator, not unless the VM itself had been programmed that way.

But that was a dead end. He couldn't go down to the surface of the Earth. He could _not_  face the wreckage that was the Hub. But you know... Gwen could always do it. If he could remember her number, rig up the right equipment, he could call her. And if she picked up, he could ask her. If she found it, he would still need a way to the planet and back, but there were a lot of ifs that had to fall into place first.

If it meant his sanity, it was worth a shot.

It only took him twenty minutes to find the equipment he needed to make an extremely long-distance phone call. Another thirty minutes after that, and he had it set up to dial Earth. And of course, he instantly remembered her number.

It took him three days to build up the courage to call. He kept putting it off, finding excuse after imaginary excuse to avoid it. He had his job to do, the impossible task of keeping the damn ship from stalling in between docks. There were nightly watches, and he wouldn't let himself be distracted during them. But one night, while waiting for some diagnostics tests to put the engine through its paces, he ran out of excuses. Now was the time.

Millions of scenarios flew through his head as he dialed. What if she didn't answer? Would he leave a message? Try again later? What if she did answer, but only long enough to scream at him about how much of a monster he was, that he really was cold and heartless for abandoning her like that? Would she beg him to come back, ask him to explain what he had done?

His thoughts were abruptly cut off when Gwen picked up after one ring. "Hello?"

"Gwen-"

"JACK! Bloody hell, it's been months! Where are you? Are you alright? When are you coming back?" A thousand questions poured out of her mouth, faster than Jack intended on answering.

"Gwen, I need you to do something for me."

Of course she agreed. And that was the first in a long line of successes, dozens of little ifs that turned into whens, until he found himself standing on a wet, grassy hilltop overlooking Cardiff.

Just feeling the ground beneath his feet was almost an out of body experience for Jack, looking out over the city that he had worked so long and so hard to protect, a city that no longer had any use for him. He almost missed it, that twinkling little city by the bay, with its all its charms and flaws. But it wasn't enough to draw him back; everyone there had moved on with their lives. There was no place for the immortal guardian.

He heard their footsteps long before he saw them. It was a good thing, too, as it gave him an extra moment or two to push back the flood of unexpected emotions. By the time Gwen and Rhys poked their heads out of the trees, he was back to his typical stoic face, barely a trace of the turbulent feelings showing through.

The fact that they looked so happy with each other didn't help his bitterness, either.

"Couldn't have just chosen a pub, could you?"

"It's bloody freezing. My feet-"

"Oh, I miss that. The Welsh complaining," he said, turning to the very pregnant Gwen. He couldn't stop the stab at his heart when he looked at Gwen but saw a younger Alice, complaining about her swollen feet but refusing any help from her old dad. "You look good."

"I look huge," she shot back.

"She's bloody gorgeous." Rhys never looked prouder in his life. Jack envied him a little, starting out on a new stage in life like this. And he looked so damn pleased with himself, too.

They all paused, quite awkwardly, until Gwen took a few steps forward. "You okay?"

"Yeah." It was a lie, but a convincing one. The truth was that he had his hands stuffed into his pockets because they were shaking so badly, he couldn't hold eat. He felt trapped, despite being surrounded by an open field and a clear sky. But he wouldn't tell her that. He just stood there as she reached out to smooth his coat and scarf, a most unwelcome touch at the moment. He still said nothing.

"Did it work?"

"Traveled all sorts of places. This planet is too small. The whole world is like a graveyard."

"Come back with us."

"Haven't traveled far enough yet. Got a lot of dirt to shake off my shoes. And right now," he said as he looked up at the stars. "There's a cold fusion cruiser, surfing the ion reefs, just on the edge of the solar system. Just waiting to open its transport dock. I just need to send a signal."

Gwen unzipped her pocket and pulled out his wrist strap - and it was one of the most welcome sights Jack had seen in a long time. "They found it in the wreckage. Indestructible. Like its owner. I put on a new strap for you."

"Cost me fifty quid, that!" Good old Rhys. Count on him to try to make you feel better and more often than not, fail miserably.

"Bill me!" He tried to crack a smile, but he didn't have the energy for even that. He was ready to run again, to get away from this whole mess of a planet.

"Are you ever coming back, Jack?"

"What for?"

"Me." She was all too fast with that answer, like she had anticipated the question. She didn't need him. She had Rhys, a child on the way, a whole new life. She was better off without him around. It was certainly safer for her, for all of them.

Another beat. "It wasn't your fault."

But the words fell flat. She didn't even know the half of it. The blame couldn't lay anywhere else. "I think it was."

"No."

"Steven and Ianto and Owen and Tosh and Suzie... All of them. Because of me."

"But you saved us. Didn't you?"

"I began to like it. And look what I became. Still. I have lived so many lives, it's time to find another one." What was that phrase? You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become a villain? Well, dying a hero wasn't exactly an option for Jack, now, was it? That only left the latter, something he utterly hated about himself. He flipped open his wrist strap and pressed a single button.

"But they did die, and I'm sorry Jack, but you cannot just run away. You cannot run away."

Well, it seemed Gwen had already managed to heal those wounds. So much for the bleeding heart he once knew. But it was just more evidence that Jack didn't belong here anymore. Everyone had moved on, even the last remaining member of Torchwood. But he couldn't tell her that. Instead, he just looked at her and with the transport beam slowly surrounding him, simply said, "Oh, yes, I can. Just watch me."

 


End file.
